Great Harvest Field Trip

A few weeks ago, some ladies in my ward took our kids on a "field trip" to Great Harvest bread company. It is a fun outing for the kids where they see how they make bread and decorate a cookie and, of course, have free samples!!!

I love this picture of Abigail because she looks so excited to answer the question AND she raised her hand.

Wow, that is a large dough hook. They said they do over a hundred loaves at a time.

Even Asher was getting in on the action.

Asher was actually entertained for more than 10 minutes. I was very impressed. But don't be fooled, after 10 minutes he thought he could run the store and had me running all over the place for him. :)

I have a Ten Year Old!

I feel like such a bad mom. Since I have had this blog, I have always posted a birthday post for each of our kids on or before their birthday. It is now November and almost 4 weeks past Austin's birthday and still no post! I am sorry little buddy!

My amazing, talented, heck-a smart, helpful, hard-working son -- he is 10! I can't believe it! I have a 10 year old! As sad as it makes me that my kids are getting older much faster than I want, I love the stage that Austin is at. He is old enough to basically take care of himself (although he would probably never shower or brush his teeth if I didn't make him). He is helpful with his younger siblings. He can help his dad in the yard or around the house. He whines a little (OK, sometimes a lot) but I think he is one of the most hard-working kids I know. He is super smart...smarter than me. The little stinker knows it too! He is usually right (just like his dad). At least I am smarter than Abigail and Asher (for now). :)

Austin has already read all 4 Children's Scripture readers. He loves to read so we said that we would give him $50 if he read the Book of Mormon all the way through by the end of the year. I know! I know! Maybe bribing your kid to have a testimony isn't the best way to go about it but hopefully it works! HeHe. He was hesitant at first because he said that he wouldn't understand it and that it would be boring. We told him once he got into it a little then we would help him to understand it better and that there were battles and bloodshed so it gets a little more interesting too. Once he started he would ask us questions that showed how much he really understood. He was asking things that even I didn't know. I had to send him to his dad. They sparked great discussions. Even though bribing probably isn't the best way to do it, Austin will have read the Book of Mormon before he is 11! Chris finished it in the MTC. I read it completely with Chris when I was 18. He is already talking about being excited to start the Doctrine and Covenants and the Old and New Testaments. I hope he can stick with it (without getting paid for it)!

One of Austin's greatest traits is his commitment to what he is doing or interested in. He rotates between Star Wars, Harry Potter, Ninja Turtles and currently we are back to Transformers. Everything he does revolves around this subject! We have to tell him to STOP talking about it because he gets so obsessed with every aspect of it. But you can definitely say he is committed! :) I love this kid! I am so grateful that he is part of our family.

Smells Like Chicken

I am horrible at writing down my kids funny sayings. But this is one that is definitely for the books. Here is a conversation I had with Asher today:

Mom: Asher, I need to change your diaper. You are stinky.

Asher: Smells like CHIC-KEN!

I couldn't help but laugh and I laughed even harder because he was laughing at himself because he thought he was so funny. Which he was.

And here he is trying to wear mascara as lipstick.

"Oh look, another photo op....cheese."

Halloween X3

I love Halloween as much as the next guy but when you have to dress up your four little munch-kins three days in a row, you really are glad that it is 365 days (give or take a few) until you have to do it again. This year we had three very fun and festive Halloween nights: school carnival, family Halloween birthday party and, of course, Halloween night.

I am not sure where my kids get it because neither their dad nor I are extremely theatrical. But my kids are definitely posers! I have to tell them to act normal. I am glad they are like that because Chris and I are so boring. They make our house loud, entertaining, a little obnoxious and happy!

My cheesy Zebra! Isn't he the cutest little Zebra you have ever seen?

I am probably (OK, I am) extremely biased, but I think my girls make the most beautiful Cinderellas. Allison was Cinderella a couple of years ago and just as beautiful as Abigail. Maybe it is the blond hair and fair complexion which is similar to the original Cinderella that makes them seem so authentic. Maybe it is the diamonds and sparkles I put all over their face (which is hard to see in the picture). Either way, they are the most beautiful Cinderellas I have ever seen. Not biased at all, right! :)

Abigail loved her gloves. They were her most favorite part of the costume. She kept asking me, "Can I put my gloves on now?" I kept making her wait because they were white and I didn't want to keep having to wash them between activities. In this picture she is showing them off.

I am not exactly sure what Allison is. The package of the costume said "Skull Dress." So does that make her a skull lady? I dunno. I also bought her these fake red nails with bats on them that she LOVED! In this picture she is showing how cool they are. :)

I don't tell her to pose...she just does it. She would probably make a good model except for the fact that I would NEVER want her to be one. She says she wants to be a doctor anyway. Phew!

This is Austin completely in character.

Once again with the poses.

And the theatrics. Don't ask me why he is stabbing himself? His sisters thought he was hilarious.

This is Allison with her two cousins at the In-Tune Halloween performance.

Chris's cousin throws the cutest parties with the funnest games. She had the kids get into two teams and dress the kids like mummys which is a lot harder than it looks. This is Allison dressed as a mummy. She had black lights on to enhance the effect. She also played musical chairs Halloween bingo. It is a mix between musical chairs and bingo played with "headstone"names.

Missing Keith

I have been meaning to post these pics for a while but just haven't gotten around to them yet. Plus I wanted to make sure Keith was allowed to look at my blog first so he could see them because they are kinda for him. :)

When Keith left for his mission, our kids (his nieces and nephews) were sad that he would be missing our family get-togethers. So Elisa (Chris's oldest sister) had a fun idea to make a life-size cutout of him so that he would "still be here." :) I photo-shopped a picture of his body, Chris printed a life-size portrait to scale of him and Elisa cut and modgepodged it onto a board. In some of the pictures, if you didn't know it was fake, you would think it was really him! The kids loved it and it helps the littler ones to remember him.

This is John missing Keith really bad....although I am happy to say that I think he is finally out of the mourning stage. :)

"Your coming with me."

"The only time in my life that I am stronger than you and that I can carry you."

GQ: John and Anne Marie

Grandma Annie's 60th Birthday party. All the grandkids wanted to see her open her presents.

Due to Grandma Annie's 60th birthday party, all the grand kids were together for the first time in a long time. So, we decided to try and get all the grand kids together for pictures with Grandma and Grandpa. That is 21 kids all under the age of 11. Hello! What were we thinking. Like that is going to work. But it is kind of fun to look at these pictures and remember how crazy it is. I love that my kids have so many cousins (on both sides of the family) to play with.

Funny faces, hugging, crying, not paying attention...always someone doing something...this is just with the kids...imagine trying to get 17 more adults into the picture for the whole family. INSANE!

This is the best one I got of everyone and it is still not good. Alaina, the oldest grandchild, looks great in all of them. I am sure Anna got some better ones. :)

Happy Birthday to our Little Sunshine

Allison turns 7 today (or yesterday, since I didn't get this posted in time.) She is an amazing little girl who I love having in our family. We call her our little sunshine because she always seems to find the positive in any situation and seems to make us laugh when we need it most. I am so grateful that she has recently gotten over a little diva spell. I hope it never returns but will hopefully be prepared when it does.

We also call her a tornado because without even r

ealizing what she is doing the girl is so messy! :) She eats messy, plays messy, and always gets something on her clothes. However, she is also a good helper except for sweeping which she likes to pretend she is Cinderella and dances with the broom instead of sweeping with it. She even kisses it like it is Prince Charming. I can't get mad at her because I am usually giggling.

We had her birthday party on Saturday. When I asked her what cake she wanted she said strawberry. I was happy with that since I am trying to keep my life a little more simple lately and so baking a strawberry cake seemed pretty brainless. (Of course, I had to make it from scratch because I can't make my life THAT easy) I made the cake on Tuesday to put in the freezer until Saturday. Abigail was excited and opened the fridge for Allison to see when she got home from school. "Look, Allison! Mom, made you

r cake." Allison looked at it a little dissappointed. I said "what is wrong?" She said she wanted a strawberry cake. I said, that is a strawberry cake. She said no a "real strawberry" cake. As in one that looks like this...

I said, "I am sorry, I didn't realize." She said, "That is OK mom, you can make it for me next year."

This is the cake I actually made. It doesn't look as fancy as the one above but it tasted awesome. If you want a yummy home-made strawberry cake recipe...click here.

Time for presents!

We hesitated on getting her a new bike but she has never had her own bike. She has either had hand-me-downs from her brother or cousins. As soon as she learned to ride a bike without training wheels, I can barely keep her off of one. She wants to ride in the morning before school. It is the first thing she asks to do when she gets home from school. If we go anywhere she asks if we can take her bike in the car with us. The girl LOVES to ride! So we felt like we should get one for her and you can tell by the pictures, she was so happy which, in return, makes mom and dad so happy. :)

Disneyland - Abigail's Trip

We plan a trip to Disneyland about every 3 years or when one of our children is between the ages of 4 and 5. This year Abigail is at the special age when they are old enough to go on most of the rides but still young enough to find everything magical and exciting. So, this was Abigail's trip. Each of our kids have had one so far and it has turned out to be a really special tradition in our family. We have been planning Abigail's trip for October of this year but some work things came up for Chris and we thought that going

sooner might work out better. The kids knew we were planning a Disneyland trip but didn't know that we had switched it to be in September so we surprised them and it was so fun doing it that way. We are for sure going to do it that way again. The morning that we left, Abigail got a

call from Mickey and Minnie to let her know that they were expecting her. At first she just smiled and didn't really get what they were saying to her but then I told her and she jumped up and down with excitement. We finished packing the car and then picked the older two kids up early from school. When we were walking to the car they were asking why I was picking them up early and why Dad was in the car. When they got in, Abigail yelled, "We're going to Disneyland." At first they looked at us like, "not really?" Chris and I both shook our heads "yes" and they both started screaming and laughing and yelling that they had the best parents ever. :) That was the best part. ;)

The Hotel and Day 1

OK, so we splurged, really splurged and stayed in the Grand Californian Hotel. They actually were offering a great rate this particular week ( I think it is one of the slowest weeks of the year) so we got a pretty good deal and decided that we couldn't pass it up. We are so glad that we didn't because it was awesome. Not only did it save on a lot of walking, it also allowed us to get in early to California Adventure, get Fast Passes for the World of Color first, they put candy on the kids beds each night, gave the kids balloons, several different types of pins, and autographed pictures of the princes for the girls and buzz and woody for the boys! But honestly the best part was the just the access to the parks was awesome! If we are able to do it again, we definitely will!

Day 2 - California Adventure

We usually go in the middle of October, during the week, so lines are relatively quick and it is getting a little cooler during the day. This year was definitely warmer than usual but the lines were almost non-existent. Plus we know what times to hit the rides so we have the shortest wait times (let me know if you want to know too). :) We walked onto almost every ride we went on so that opened up a lot of free time to see some of the shows that we have passed up in the past.

Today was also the first day that Abigail rode her first "scary" ride. Our families favorite ride is Tower of Terror. She was very apprehensive about it but never cried. I was very proud of her. During the ride, she held on to both Chris and I's arms and would NOT let go. Our conversation after the ride, went like this:

Mom: Did you love it?

Abigail: Yes

Mom: Do you want to do it again?

Abigail: No

That is how the conversation went after about all the rides. :) Some of her favorite rides at California Adventure were Symphony Swings and The New Little Mermaid. We also saw the new World of Color show which is Ahhh-mazing! If you like Fantasmic, than you will LOVE this show! Some of the other shows we saw were It's Tough to be a Bug, Muppet Vision 3D, Disney Dance Crew, and Disney Jr. Live on Stage.

Day 3 -- Disneyland

By day 3 we finally made it over to Disneyland. We rode the new Star Tours 3D ride and thought the changes they made were great. They didn't change it a lot but added just enough to definitely make it worth your effort to go see it. We went on it twice and both times were slightly different. The first time we rode Space Mountain, Abigail, once again, was not really loving it afterwards. But by the third time it was one of her favorites!

We also tried for the first time a Pineapple juice float. Oh my heavens...where have you been all my life!? They were so good and one of the many things that I am trying to recreate at home! If I figure it out, I will post the recipe because they were so good, especially on a hot day!

Besides going on all the rides, we watched the parade which was awesome, as always. For some odd reason, Disneyland closed at 6pm (I think because they were having a private party). Instead of going back to California Adventure we decided to go to a nice restaurant in Downtown Disney or back at the Hotel. We finally decided to go to Storybook Cafe inside the Hotel and although a little pricey, the food was sooo good. Chris and I had buffet style, while the kids had their own plates. It is the best buffet I have ever had. All the food was gourmet...even the pizza. My mouth is just watering thinking about it again. Mmmm!

Both the kids got picked to be in the Star Wars show. They were both cute and loved it!

Even though carousel rides seem to be everywhere, the kids still gotta ride them...and mom still has to take their pics! :)

We went on Buzz Light Year twice and here are the family awards:

Freakin' High Scorer: Dad with an amazing 231,400 points (how is that possible?)

Most Improved: Austin (who I think forgot how to play the game...he went from 400 to 55,000)

Most "In To It": Mom (did you see that face? and with an impressive 79,700)

Sweetest: Allison

Cutest: Abigail (of course, and with a high of 7,800)

The girls begged for these suckers all day. We finally conceded by they had to

wait until the hotel room to eat them because I didn't want to clean up after them all day long.

That was the first thing they did when we got back to the room and they begged me to take

their pictures while eating them. I am glad I did because even though the lighting wasn't great

they turned out cute!

Day 4: Saving the Best for Last

This is the day that we went on all our favorite rides again and saw several great shows.

At California Adventure, we saw the Alladin show which is in a large theater and is a mini-Broadway

style musical of the movie. It was actually really good! (Do I sound like a broken record yet?) We

also saw Mickey today and watched the Pixar Pal show. Chris got picked to make the kids laugh at the

end...you had to be there to understand but it was funny...see below.

Since it was Abigail's trip, she got to pick which character meal we were going to do. At first she picked Lilo and Stitch but then changed her mind to the princess Lunch at Ariel's Grotto. The food there is also great and the princesses come to your table instead of you having to wait in line to see them. They will take a picture with you and give you their autograph if you want it. After walking, and standing in line for everything else, it is nice to not have to wait for this.

We also got front row seats to Fantasmic (because I was willing to sit for two hours for them) but the kids did a few more rides and it was worth the wait for the view. Best view we have ever had of Fantasmic. We also saw the fireworks that night. Both shows never disappoint and the kids loved them!

Day 5: Huntington Beach

Today was the day we drove home but not before letting the kids see the Beach. I met my oldest and bestest friend there with her kids (two of them at least). It was a little cold up on the pier but down by the beach it was better. The kids loved looking for seashells. The funny thing was that they didn't realize that the water would keep coming back over and over again so they kept putting piles of their shells down in the water when it had receded and then trying to save them before the water would wash them away again. I thought it was pretty funny. And Michele, since you should be reading this...I put you down for July so you better plan on it. :) We miss you!!!